Its annoying when writers (i do this sometomes but then again I'm not really a writer Am I?) write some big opening and then in the following paragraph they, if not completely, deny everything they said in the opening.

But the problem, here and elsewhere, isn’t exactly that we tax high rollers’ incomes too lightly. It’s that we subsidize their irresponsibility too heavily — underwriting their bad bets and bailing out their follies. The class warfare we need is a conservative class warfare, which would force the million-dollar defaulters to pay their own way from here on out.

In case after case, Washington’s web of subsidies and tax breaks effectively takes money from the middle class and hands it out to speculators and have-mores. We subsidize drug companies, oil companies, agribusinesses disguised as “family farms” and “clean energy” firms that aren’t energy-efficient at all.

To read this drivel, if I was not an American, I would think the government was being run by a foreign entity. It is the same liberals he aims to defend that have created the monster he now described as our devouring monster.

The most pernicious sort of redistribution is that which is forced and involuntary, the kind where it is any business of people like Douthat to decide what other people do or do not do with their own money.

And, frankly, most conservatives couldn't care less about what Weigel-clone and probable JournoLister Douthat says about conservatives.

..that seeks to shrink government by attacking Washington’s wasteful spending.. And sometimes conservative politicians make moves in this direction... House Minority Leader John Boehner, to his great credit, recently floated the possibility of means-testing Social Security.

Notice how liberals are sure to mention, or at least say bipartisanship things about unpopular, politically risky things to the "benefit" of conservatives wanting to do the "right thing"

I don't see the transfer to the reckless, unproductive rich. But other than that, I agree.

I would also add transfers from the industrious middle class to the freeloading government employees.

I read a Heritage report yesterday that compared private and public pay and benefits. Part of what is interesting about it is that in terms of pay, public employees in managerial or professional white collar jobs didn't earn notably more than their private employee counterparts (ignoring their much higher benefits). But in the clerical ranks, they earned much more. That DMV clerk earns far more than she would, given her credentials, than she would in private enterprise.

I think that a lot of us are a bit miffed that so much of the Stimulus bill went to giving government employees raises (and was thus counted as "saving jobs"), and that government employees have for the most part not felt the recession as the rest of the country has.

And, of course, the financial problems that most of the states face right now comes from being coopted by their employees. Through the Bush boom, the states and their subdivisions hired a bunch of new employees, gave them all raises, and, worse, cranked up their retirement benefits. Indeed, about the only place left in this country where you can find defined benefit retirement plans is in the public sector. And, somehow, we are all supposed to bail out the states that most egregious in this regard.

Don't agree. The most pernicious sort of redistribution is from everyone else to the political class.

I disagree to some extent. The political class wastes far more money on buying votes than it ever accumulates for itself. If we just gave each of them a million dollars a year, and promised to keep them in office for life if they would just not spend money on buying votes, the deficit would disappear over night. A million dollars a year for everyone in Congress is only about a half a billion dollars a year, out of a trillion plus dollar budget.

The problem, as I see it, is that Congress seems willing to spend hundreds of millions, if not more buying votes, for each thousand dollars that they manage to pocket for themselves.

Without risk taking there is no future. Freaking pundits are all acting like this crap never happened before. Risk taking is self limiting in a free market. The problem is when government policy starts playing with the rules of what is a dangerous but rewarding game, i.e., life for free people.

Eventually you get to where people don't even understand the oldest, most basic concepts. Education is no protection, since it gets infected with the same stupidity.

Most conservatives opposed TARP, Porkulus, the GM/Chrysler bailouts... i.e., the various transfers from the "industrious middle class" to the "reckless, unproductive rich". Why is this guy talking like this is something conservatives need to START doing?

Just because you are not mailing our fee dosent mean the rest of the world is not malling theirs.

Its near 10 pm (somewhere around the glove) do you know where your fee is?

Its a simple question to many of us in the fee mailing cause.. but as as we always say "a mailed fee.. is a fee that.. has no cause for alarm" .. a mailed fee is a good fee.. a mailed fee always comes home.

The wealthy aren't like you or me...they're bigger hypocrites and thieves than the rest of us.

Of course, it's a truism of human nature historically that the rich flatter themselves that their wealth is God's sign of their special virtue, while their inferiors' lesser good fortune reveals them to be...inferior.

Last I heard, 70% of all millionaires in this country were self-made, so they made something or did something of value to other people during their own lifetime, and not by inheriting fortunes like the Kennedys or Sulzbergers.

Which means they probably created private sector jobs - which is the real offense; that, and enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Revenant said...

Most conservatives opposed TARP, Porkulus, the GM/Chrysler bailouts... i.e., the various transfers from the "industrious middle class" to the "reckless, unproductive rich". Why is this guy talking like this is something conservatives need to START doing?

Best answered by the phrase, "We have always been at war with Oceania".

Bruce Hayden said... ".... a Heritage report yesterday that compared private and public pay and benefits. ... in terms of pay, public employees in managerial or professional white collar jobs didn't earn notably more than their private employee counterparts ..."

Is there a comparable job to an IRS worker in the private sector? Or a clerk at Health and Human Services? That's where the logic of the "Heritage Institute" withers and dies on the vine.

Here In CO, both of the democrats vying for the senate seat have to lie in order to trick voters into voting for them. They both claim to want to clean up corrupt Washington, but they both want "single payer" government sanctioned redistributionist tax payer funded health care and they would both vote "yes" on everything Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi write.

"In case after case, Washington’s web of subsidies and tax breaks effectively takes money from the middle class and hands it out to speculators and have-mores. We subsidize drug companies, oil companies, agribusinesses disguised as “family farms” and “clean energy” firms that aren’t energy-efficient at all."

He's right. But, the game is also about taking from the producer class (non-union middle class) and giving it to the leisure class.

the most pernicious sort of redistribution isn’t from the successful to the poor. It’s from [...] the industrious middle class to the reckless, unproductive rich.

The bottom 50% of wage earners only pay about 4% of all federal income taxes. Sure, they pay their portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes but if they have children, that can be completely offset by the mis-names "Earned Income Tax Credit." Then there are the millions of people who completely get their income (plus housing, medical care, food stamps, etc) from others and have no legal income at all.

I guess none of these people send their kids to school, drive on the highways, get any coverage from the police and fire departments, or do anything at the cost of the rest of us. No wealth distribution going on here. Move along.

Some comments here seem to indicate that there is a belief that a successful person upon achieving wealth should immediately get a job working hard for minimum wage so as to not let being wealthy have any advantages.

Here is my position. I don't care for govt programs but if we must have these govt programs, allow everyone to feed at the trough. Even if they are millionaires!

I am tired of govt programs that are limited due to some pols's idea of middle class income or "the rich".

Where this thinking by Douhat is going is to put income limits on socisl security and medicare programs. Do you think that is appropriate Reader? Require 100% of Americans to pay in 15% of their lifetime earnings and then when they hit 65 tell some "sorry you are too well off- life's a bitch and you should have spent more of your money instead of saving it".

And furthermore [heh], if we scrapped most of our wealth redistribution schemes including the mortgage interest deduction, we could take the money saved and give every adult [over 30 years old] $1,000 per month and the budget impact would be zero.

That is the kind of reform and fairness and consistency I'd support. And it would rid us of the 24/7 whining self-interest dependency groups.

I would be 100% fine with scrapping the mortgage interest deduction and similar redistribution schemes. But I am more of flat-taxer myself--I'd keep it pretty low and even be OK with a reasonable personal allowa but I'd do it across the board and apply it to EVERYTHING--W-2, bonuses, investment income, any incoming income stream. No tilting in any direction.

AJ, anything that's done to SS is going to affect us. They're talking about raising eligibility to age 70, for example, and that's just now. (I expect that age to rise in the future, and well before I hit 70 in 20 years). I think that's a foregone conclusion, no matter what I like or do not like. And I've paid into social security, too (actually, I have paid in both halves of SS for more than half of my adult working life--adult working life defined as 18 and over, and my husband for all but 10 years of his, so I don't say that lightly).

And I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford, much less a SECOND home or INVESTMENT home I couldn't afford, and I'm not walking away from mortages and debts. I didn't speculate, stupidly or not, and then decide to walk away because it's not such a great investment anymore.

I don't see the transfer to the reckless, unproductive rich. But other than that, I agree.

I would also add transfers from the industrious middle class to the freeloading government employees.

Amen.

It's more like the termporarily rich or pretending to be rich. Government employments are becomeing a burden to society. By its nature government produces little. We have too many people involved in this government activity.

A commenter on this very site was crying during the Obamacare debate that he couldn't afford diabetes supplies for his daughter and needed my help. 3 months later he was bragging about the 3 new Trek bicycles he bought for his family.

But conservatives need to recognize that the most pernicious sort of redistribution isn’t from the successful to the poor. It’s from savers to speculators, from outsiders to insiders, and from the industrious middle class to the reckless, unproductive rich.

That is a great line by Ross Douthat.And he is right.Until brainless conservatives who ideologically extol hedge fund owners, Wall Street bankers, and taxpayer insured and taxpayer debt-fueled waterfront property McMansion speculators - Consrvatives will always get pinned with the "tools of the rich" not champions of the middle class label.

Hating Obama does not mean pining for the return of the Bushies and the immense domestic damage that crowd did to the middle class.

edutcher said...Last I heard, 70% of all millionaires in this country were self-made..."

where did you hear that edutcher?..you need to stop reading the walls in the public stalls at Grand Central..ya'betcha.

That's where you get your info, obviously.

YA BETCHA!!!!

FWIW to those who can actually stand the truth, it's closer to 80%, according to Reader's Digest.

Pogo said..."IRS worker = Corporate compliance clerk"

I misunderstood the depths of your lack of knowledge.

As usual, Pogo is more than right. Most people would cringe if they knew who was actually working on their tax returns. If you remember who the Deadheads were, that was how a lot of them financed their year on the road.

The WSJ had an article last year on a mortgage re-do for a guy in California.

He had owned his home for almost 40 years, was a retired state prison guard and owed more than $400K in mortgages. He claimed he re-financed the home and spent some of the money on his late wife's medical bills.

Bottom line is the bank/ govt redid his mortgage into like a $100K reverse mortgage so he gets to stay there forever until he dies and has no mortgage payment. And the tax law was amended in 2007 so he has no tax liability on the forgiven debt of $300K or more. Pretty sweet deal for that guy huh? Talk about free money!

How many others are there like these? Deals like this don't match up with what Ross Douhat claims is out there.

As for Mr. Douthit's column. I like his thoughts and i generally agree with his sentiments in this piece but I also worry about dis-incentivising/penalizing risk.

We need risk takers.

Now having said that risk takers need to understand and experience the consequences of their risk. That goes for the home-owner who bought more than he/she could afford with a no money down balloon loan and for a Wall Street firm that bet too much on CDO's.

The people of the United States are not the people of the United States to "cost" or "make" anything for the federal treasury - asshole!!

The mortgage subsidy is a scrap from master’s table. Quit fighting over scraps.

The US Treasury shouldn’t use us like an ATM. It does anyway. Don’t hang that on Douthat. He’s all for lowering taxes. But we should lower taxes across the board, not pick winners with targeted tax breaks.

The government pumps up home prices so that the average citizen looks wealthy on paper. When some folks complain that govt subsidies lead to artificially high prices, the left accuses us of wanting to evict "homeowners". The right accuses us of wanting to raise taxes.

A commenter on this very site was crying during the Obamacare debate that he couldn't afford diabetes supplies for his daughter and needed my help. 3 months later he was bragging about the 3 new Trek bicycles he bought for his family.

I don't give a shit whether someone's self-made or not if, in the end, due to careless speculation and blind faith in bubbles, you end up on the short end of the payoff stick and start walking away from your obligations because they're not great investments anymore, leaving others to pick up your slack.

You're still an asshole. You're still taking advantage. You're still spitting in the face of those who keep plugging away and expecting "other people" to suck it up.

That's what *I* call interesting imagery. A harpsichord. Dang, I'm no expert, but I'd be surprised if you could get even a mediocre one in pretty bad shape for under $1,000 bucks or so, and then you'd have to spring for repairs, I'd assume.

That's even before you take into consideration how many people know how to play one.

You know, it's not redistribution from the rich to the poor. It's redistribution from the middle class to those who know how to game the system - not "the poor".

Case in point: Section 8 housing vouchers enrich not the poor, but a class of quite rich, taxpayer-bilking slumlords.

"The Poor" maybe pay a little less than market rate for their apartments - say an apartment would get $650 on the open market - the Section 8 will pay $500. The landlord, meanwhile, "officially" charges the taxpayer $1600 - for an absolute shit apartment in the worst possible area of town.

There's got to be some markup for paperwork and risk, but not 150%.

Tell me, what's compassionate about serving a slumlord?

Meanwhile the only way the poor are truly helped is by having their friends and family live there under the radar - because the government, of course, has forbidden this market correction and limits the amount of people allowed.

Sorry to be abstruse, Reader. It was Palladian that put me in mind of the harpsichord. I had this image of people forced to enjoy the consequences of their own actions and, simultaneously, baroque music. My comment was an appreciation of A.J.'s proposal, not snark.

What did they think would happen when the government started subsidizing low mortgage rates? They're always yapping about unintended consequences when an environmental issue comes up, but they tinker with the national and world economies with never a question of how they might screw it up.

The tax code used to recognize basic fairness -- you earn interest, you add it to your income; pay interest, you subtract it from your income. Then the political class decided that interest should be treated differently when you pay it rather than receive it. So they limited the deduction to home mortgages. And then they limited the amount of the mortgage.

And now? The screw job from the political class is being dscribed as a freebie for the rich. This is nuts.

I am retired and on Social Security and Medicare. Cancel it if you want but first pay me all the bucks I had extorted from me over the 45 years I paid in - and at the max rate for 25 of those years and also at the max rate paying both employer and employee side for the other 20 years. Then you can cancel it all you want. I had insurance extorted without my having a choice for all those years and was legally promised a return on that insurance when I retired. Either honor the insurance or pay back the premium withheld. I don't care which but one or the other should hold.